Local store nearing 100th anniversary

The sound of brown bags ruffle at the checkout line while grocery clerks enter prices for cereal, sugar, coffee and other general supplies.

Shane Thibodaux Lifestyles Editor

The sound of brown bags ruffle at the checkout line while grocery clerks enter prices for cereal, sugar, coffee and other general supplies.Not much has changed, Cecil Lapeyrouse says.The second-generation grocery store owner gets giddy as his store, Lapeyrouse Grocery, in the southern reaches of Terrebonne Parish, approaches its 100th anniversary next year.The 61-year-old's grandfather, Gustav, opened the store in 1914, and the younger Lapeyrouse admits the store remains closely intact to what his grandfather built at 7243 Shoreline Drive.Cecil said the changes he's seen through the years are the faces and environment.“The store is still operating, more or less, like it was,” he said, “and we try and keep it that way.”Cecil said the area where the grocery store sits was vital for the growing community in 1914, which saw other stores come and go and an oyster shucking business for the area between Cocodrie and Chauvin.“Times change, and now this is a very small store,” he said, “but at the time, it was the big store.”Sheila Lapeyrouse, 57, of Chauvin, Gustav's great-granddaughter, has fond memories of the grocery store as a child.She said she remembers hurrying through chores in the morning to will turnspend the afternoons playing, fishing, crabbing and boating in the bayou with friends near the store.“My grandmaw would let us have one piece of bubble gum a day, and my grandpaw said I could have one candy bar a week,” said Sheila, who operates Lapeyrouse Seafood Bar and Grocery up the road on La. 56. The business was also started by Gustav but is now owned by his grandson, Sheila's father.Cecil said keeping the store's doors open through the years was tough and said eyeing further than the store's 100th anniversary brings thoughts of sadness.He doesn't see passing the torch to the younger generation of the Lapeyrouse family, and continued competition with larger grocery stores may be the nail in the coffin for his store.“When the store was built, there were no cars, and now every household has two cars,” Cecil said. “A lot of people will drive 15 or 20 miles to save $1, but they are going to burn more than that in gas.”